* On Monday 2005-11-14 at 17:01:10 +0000, Julian Foad wrote: > Yes, but I have long wanted a search tool that reports the matched text > only. Maybe that functionality should have been put into a new program > instead of into Grep.
Bingo. Its innovations (i.e., practically successful inventions) could be back ported to grep, but only after they have matured and stabilized, and shown their compatibility with the vision on which grep is based. Also, experimentation needs and can benefit from degrees of freedom that a stable program cannot provide, as a development space. > On the other hand, I have a grand vision in which > Grep is based on a search algorithm that doesn't know or care about lines > or newline characters, and all the line-based behaviour including the > default mode of displaying the whole line in which a match is found would > be implemented on top of that general algorithm. Good idea. Even better if it understands structured content, like other *greps attempt to do. But grep is the line-based one that is part of a whole coherent suite of Unix programs centered around that idea. Any vision centered around any idea is even better if a whole coherent set of tools is provided around it to form a complete environment.
